Apple's Lost Value Is Bigger Than The Combined Market Caps Of 54 S&P 500 Companies

Apple's stock stock price has been getting clobbered since closing at $702.10 on September 19, 2012.

In a new note, Oppenheimer's chief market strategist John Stoltzfus puts Apple's decline in perspective.

Apple has "been a drag on not only the Information Technology sector [but] broad markets". From September 19 to December 14, Apple's market cap fell from $658.15 billion to $479.56 billion, a loss of $178.59 billion, notes Stoltzfus:

"If we list all 500 companies in the S&P 500 index in order by smallest to largest market cap, the value erased by Apple’s decline exceeds the cumulative total value of the 54 smallest companies–more than 10% of the companies in the entire S&P 500 index."